Tomato season may be ending, but that doesn’t mean our veg patch now has to turn barren for the rest of the year – there’s still time to plant radishes in their place and get a good harvest before frost arrives.
Growing radishes is easy and hugely satisfying if you’re looking for a quick win in the garden. In as little as three weeks after sowing radish seeds (see the selection on Burpee), you can harvest these salad crops. The reason they work so well after tomatoes is that they’re compact, filling gaps in your kitchen garden and making the most of your space.
It’s the one crop to plant after pulling out tomatoes that experts always recommend. Here, they share why.
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Why Grow Radishes After Tomatoes?
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With tomato plants finishing up in late summer, there are only so many weeks before frost makes it tricky to grow anything else. But at the top of the list of fast-growing vegetables to plant in their place is radish.
‘Radishes are a good crop to grow after tomatoes because they can easily handle fall temperatures and grow so very quickly. They only take around three to four weeks before they’re ready to harvest, depending on the variety you’re growing,’ says Annette Hird, expert gardener at Easy Urban Gardens.
‘This should be plenty of time to get at least one more crop of radishes before the ground freezes, once again, depending on your growing region,’ she adds.
This cool-season crop is hardy across USDA zones 2-11, with lots of varieties to choose from – True Leaf Market has a wide range of radish seeds to shop.
Not only is the speed of radishes a reason to grow them after tomatoes, but also their size.
‘They are perfect gap fillers in the veg garden in between larger plants that take longer to grow like Swiss chard, broccoli, kale, and cabbage,’ says Corinne Beirne, kitchen gardener from The Nourishes Garden.
They’re compact crops, so it’s easy to grow radishes in pots, use space-saving vegetable garden ideas, and you can even grow radishes indoors on a sunny windowsill.
‘Being a root crop, they also help to break up the soil a little around those old tomato plant roots. Radishes are also not heavy feeders, so you won’t need to replenish the soil with fertilizer before planting them,’ says Annette. ‘And, of course, growing radishes after tomatoes is a great way to practice crop rotation, which helps to keep pests and diseases under control.’
Annette Hird has an Associate Diploma in Horticulture and is an urban gardening expert. She has worked as a professional propagator and managed, maintained and improved many urban and rural gardens. She also enjoys growing her own fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers as well as many different types of ornamental plants.
September Radish Growing Tips
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To successfully grow radishes in early fall after tomatoes, it’s best to choose the fastest-growing varieties.
‘My favorite is ‘French Breakfast’ (which you can find on Amazon); they can be harvested in just about 25 days or so. This variety also happens to look especially pretty for a kitchen garden,’ says Corinne.
‘They have an elongated shape with white tips, and are a great crunchy addition for fall salads,’ she adds.
‘I recommend ‘Cherry Belle’ (you can find seeds at Burpee), early ‘Scarlet Globe,’ and ‘Crimson Giant’ (also available at Burpee). For something a little different and possibly a winter harvest, you could try the daikon radishes, which are larger and usually white. These take up to 10 weeks to mature but will also store well in the ground. They can also be cooked and eaten much like carrots,’ Annette advises.
‘My top tip would be to sow the seeds as soon as the tomatoes are coming to an end and seed another crop after harvesting the first radishes if you still have ambient weather conditions,’ she adds.
After clearing your tomato plants, you may want to loosen any compacted soil to make seed sowing easier and give the roots room to breathe. Likewise, if soil volume is depleted in pots, top up with some fresh compost – though, as mentioned, fertilizer won’t be necessary for these crops.
Provide a sunny position and an inch of water weekly and you’ll soon spot sprouts. Harvest your radishes when their ‘shoulders’ poke out at surface level and are around one inch in diameter.
Corinne Beirne is a kitchen garden designer, planting coach, and lifelong believer that growing your own food is one of the most nourishing things you can do for yourself and your family. Her path to the garden began with herbs – and a health challenge that sent her searching for answers. While studying herbalism to support her own healing, she started working with medicinal plants and found such profound results that she became completely captivated by them. That obsession with plants led her to grow her own culinary herbs, then vegetables, and eventually a full kitchen garden. What started as a search for wellness became a way of life.
What to Shop
Radishes aren’t the only crop to plant this month; there are plenty of vegetables to plant in September for winter harvests, including kale, spinach, and corn salad. This pack of winter vegetable seeds from Amazon has a wide range to work with.
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